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Latest Comments by kaiman
Talking Point: how about a monthly Steam Game Pass from Valve
24 May 2021 at 11:45 am UTC Likes: 2

Seems the answers so far pretty much echo my own sentiment. On a personal level, I expect that the majority of games I do like playing will likely not end up as part of such a service. So it would be of little use. Even if Steam offered something like different channels for different tastes, and there would be a "narrative indie game channel", I'd rather get a perpetual license to the games I do play instead of having a constantly changing bouquet of content where games I hold dear may at any time get replaced by ones I do not care for.

More generally, I fear what would become of the vibrant gaming ecosystem if subscription services become the norm. It would install new gatekeepers when at least Steam right now is open to pretty much any developer (others already not so much). And in doing so it would likely narrow the types of games remaining viable, and affect even their gameplay to better match the affordances of a subscription model.

So no, even though it might be the inevitable future, I'm neither interested nor thrilled.

Crusader Kings III gets a first major expansion with the Royal Court
22 May 2021 at 9:53 am UTC Likes: 1

I like how this is focused on non-war gameplay. Schemes and hosting feasts aside, there wasn't a terrible lot to do within your own realm, and both got rather repetitive across my campaign.

NVIDIA launches the RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti for laptops, supply shortages until 2022
11 May 2021 at 8:17 pm UTC

It's nVidia and it's for laptops only, but it's a step in the right direction (for me, anyway). The one thing I don't understand is the limitation to 4GB of VRAM, though. Seems barely adequate for today, and not very future-proof. My nearly 6yo GTX 950 has 2GB already, and for a new card I would not really want to go below 8GB to make sure it'll last a good while.

Anyway, this time round I'm dead set on AMD, so I do hope they'll follow up with something in the lower segment soon-ish. And with a good cost-performance ratio. I have my doubts about the latter, though.

Beyond a Steel Sky gets a big upgrade with newer Vulkan support
3 May 2021 at 6:31 pm UTC

Already played it a few weeks ago, and it did have some graphical glitches on occasion. Sometimes reloading the save helped, sometimes it didn't. I have the feeling that either nVidia are having issues with their memory management, or 2GB VRAM start being inadequate for modernish 3D games.

Seems like game store GOG is doing well overall in their new figures with revenue up 114%
29 Apr 2021 at 5:38 pm UTC

Quoting: einherjarWhat "underdog" are you talking about? The "underdog" with these billionaires at the top?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2020/12/14/cyberpunk2077-made-its-polish-cofounders-billionaires--but-the-game-failed-to-live-up-to-its-hype/?sh=2c7a9527380f [External Link]
Apparently that's the result of their game development division and not the store front.

But yeah, GOG is perhaps too large to be called an "underdog". And while I failed to find a good comparison of digital PC game stores showing how much of the market each owns, my gut feeling is that GOG still pales in comparison to Steam. So I stand by my general sentiment, and will rather support the smaller of the behemoths ;-).

Seems like game store GOG is doing well overall in their new figures with revenue up 114%
28 Apr 2021 at 7:39 pm UTC Likes: 1

As long as GOG remains the underdog, my support goes (mostly) to them. As much as I like Valve for their commitment to Linux gaming, I'm still not quite over them essentially single-handedly destroying physical distribution of PC games. Now get off my lawn!

What have you been playing? Have a Sunday chat with us
19 Apr 2021 at 5:52 pm UTC

Would be playing Mutropolis, if it did run in fullscreen mode. Wonder what the issue is, since all the Daedalic adventures with a native Linux version worked fine, and those were also made with Visionaire.

So instead I'm playing Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood. I find the puzzles to be a bit on the hard side, but not necessarily because they're difficult per se, but rather because they are badly explained. And with that I mean not explained at all. Coupled with items that are easy to miss and enemies that chase you across the levels it's hardly a relaxing experience. But I think I'll see it through, provided I manage to find the ignition key.

I also had a look at TASOMACHI, via Wine, but that is even less relaxing. The platforming gets demanding pretty soon, while the controls feel strange and lack the precision required to reliably navigate the different obstacle courses. And while you can use collected coins to skip the platforming sections, that kind of defeats the purpose of playing the game. It doesn't look bad, but the gameplay could use more polish.

Klabater drops Linux and macOS support for Crossroads Inn
14 Apr 2021 at 4:15 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: bekoWell. This one is still collecting dust on my Wishlist. I never purchased it because of the mess it was according to reviews. That's some bucks saved, I guess.
Same here. I might have bitten if the Linux version had made it to GOG, but that seems totally out of the question now.

What have you been playing recently, come tell your thoughts
27 Mar 2021 at 12:28 pm UTC

Finally bought and started playing Ara Fell (currently on sale at GOG). It has a native Linux version and runs really well. It's a bit casual on the default difficulty setting, but as I mostly enjoy the story and exploration aspects of RPGs and less so the combat, it suits me just fine.

Arrow is a new open source app for developing text adventures and game narratives
22 Mar 2021 at 6:39 pm UTC

This look pretty neat. Though at that point, if I really had a need for something like that I'd probably go with ink [External Link].